Vista Does Not Startup - Startup Repair Not Loading

J

j353

Member
I'm running Vista on my older Dell PC. I recently installed some software that froze my computer. I had to power-off and restart and now Vista will not load. I don't know too much about software and would appreciate any help.
When I reboot the computer, it asks me to "launch startup repair", but when I hit "enter", the PC stalls out on the microsoft loading bar (status bar with green bars moving across with Microsoft Copyright) and I never reach the startup repair utility. Same thing when I try to open in safe mode.

I do not have a recovery desk since Dell did not send me one, but I downloaded the recovery disk from Systemdiscs, and I still can't get past the loading bar.

I burned the ISO file using, first using Roxio, then ImBurn and next using Active Isoburn. None of the 3 discs are working. I am able to load from the CD, and the screen says "Windows is loading files...", however then I get stalled-out at the microsoft loading bar like before. I never reach the repair utility.

I'm really at a loss and would appreciate any advice. I have a lot of new data that was not backed up and I don't want to lose.

Thanks
 
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Firstly, get safe by rescuing your data.
Use Ubuntu Live CD to Backup Files from Your Dead Windows Computer - How-To Geek
Then, don't worry about the burn. If you see "press any key to boot from CD" then the disc burned OK.
Unfortunately, the MS repair disc (that's what it is basically, with a few NST extras), can be afflicted by the same HDD problem which stops your PC from booting (it reads the OS partition as it boots), which not only stops you from getting to the "startup repair" but also the "command prompt" screen where you could run chkdsk to try fixing the HDD problems.
All is not lost. Other free partition managers can be obtained which are bootable and also contain the facility to check (and hopefully repair) your damaged file-system.
If that says it successfully repaired anything it found and you still can't boot, you should be able to boot the Windows repair disc at that point and try "startup repair" again.
 
Thanks for the advice. I will look into the Ubuntu option.

I let the computer run overnight and in the morning the startup utility had finally loaded. I clicked the "automatic repair" option, but received an error saying that the repair could not be automatically fixed. I also tried booting in Safe Mode, but it stalled out at a crc driver.

I'll look into Step 2 & 3 and the Ubuntu option and report my findings.

Thanks

Addendum:

SOLVED!

I finally was able to solve by manually repairing the bootlog by following Option 2 in this link: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering+the+Windows+Bootloader+from+the+DVD

Much thanks to Terry60 and neosmart!!
 
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